Weirdhouse Cinema Rewind: Shogun Assassin

In this classic episode of Weirdhouse Cinema, Rob and Joe discuss the 1980 grindhouse mainstay “Shogun Assassin,” a western release compiled from the first two “Lone Wolf and Cub” films by Kenji Misumi, highlighting its sizzling action with added electronic score and captivating narration. (originally published 12/6/2024)

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, you welcome to Weird House Cinema rewind. This is
Rob Lamb, and today we have an episode that originally
published twelve six, twenty twenty four. It is our discussion
of the nineteen eighty Grindhouse mainstay Shogun Assassin. This, of course,
is a Western release compiled from the first two Lone
Wolf and Cub films. It's so much fun, so just

(00:28):
sizzling action and hasn't really captivating electronics score, So let's
jump right into this episode.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema.

Speaker 3 (00:48):
This is Rob Lamb and I am Joe McCormick, and
today we're going to be talking about a film from
the your nineteen eighty the blood drenched samurai film, Shogun Assassin. Rob,
this was your pick. How did you get to Showgun Assassin?

Speaker 4 (01:04):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (01:04):
Wow? Mainly because I had subscribed to Criterion Channel in
order to watch Face behind the Mask for a previous episode,
and they have all these little collections in their little
playlists of movies to check out, and they had one
that was just called synth Scores, So of course I
had to dive in and see what kind of movies
they had included there, and they included one film that

(01:27):
I had heard of but I'd never seen, and that's
Showgun Assassin. And so I started playing it like I
think I was eating lunch by myself at the time,
and it was one of those films where before I
knew what had happened, I'd watched most of the film,
you know, like I had other things I really needed
to do that day, but I was already like sucked
into it. It's just if you've never seen it, I

(01:51):
highly recommend diving in as well, because I think it
will captivate most people who watch it.

Speaker 3 (01:57):
It is incredible in many ways, and I can see
why it would be classified primarily in terms of its soundtrack,
because the music in this movie just it washes over
you like a like a dark rainbow. It's just unbelievable.

Speaker 1 (02:12):
Yeah, so I'm really excited to talk about it here today.
I made sure to open up a can of my
Sun Tory Boss coffee here. I'll show it to you. Hear,
Joe did not buy it from a convenience machine on
the streets of Japan. This one is just from Super
h Mark. But they're not sponsoring this episode, by the way,

(02:32):
but I will be drinking my sun Tory Boss coffee.

Speaker 3 (02:34):
Wait, what is that just coffee or is it some
kind of coffee?

Speaker 1 (02:37):
Plus, it's just a coffee, it's inexpensive, like col Brew
black coffee in a can, nice with a fun lytle
logo on it.

Speaker 3 (02:45):
I'll have to try that one sometime. But oh so,
Chokin Assassin is a movie that I think we've done
films of this kind before, though I can't think at
the moment what they were. But this is a movie
that is not an original artistic product, but rather is
made out of other products that already existed.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
Yeah, we've talked about pictures on the show before that
exist in different, sometimes drastically different cuts. We recently did
that with Reptilicus. But yet today's episode is an extreme
case of something like this. Nineteen eighties Shogun Assassin is
a Western film release edited together from the first two
films in the famous Japanese Lone Wolf and Cub series,

(03:28):
those two films being both nineteen seventy two releases Lone
Wolf and Cubs sort of Vengeance the first of six films,
and Lone Wolf and Cub Baby cart at the River Styx,
the second of six films. Warning that you know a
lot of these film titles. The translation is maybe a
little rough, but that's part.

Speaker 3 (03:48):
Of its chime.

Speaker 1 (03:50):
So essentially, the American filmmakers involved here set out to
take the best parts from these two films and stitch
them together into a single coherent narrative featuring the best action,
the coolest visuals, and all of this built around a
rather simplified plot. I'll describe the ways that they simplified

(04:10):
the plots a little bit as we proceed, but in essence,
they're just repackaging these two films for the grindhouse market.

Speaker 3 (04:18):
I would say this movie is very loosely plotted. You
barely need to follow what's going on with the plot
or the machinations. It is more like a demo reel
of sights and sounds, and those sites are samurai action
with blood jets squirting, and the sounds are the dark
synth stylings of our composers who will get to later.

Speaker 4 (04:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
Yeah, the plot is greatly reduced here, but in a
way it also makes it super fun to then dive
into the full cuts of those first two Lone Wolf
and Cub films, which is exactly what I did after
watching Shogun Assassin. All of the Lone Wolf and Cub
films are available on a Criterion channel as well as
a this recording.

Speaker 3 (05:01):
But I'm curious how significantly different is the mood.

Speaker 1 (05:05):
I think the mood is pretty much the same. And
I think that's the really glorious thing about Showgun Assassin
is that it's easy to imagine all the ways that
a project like this could go spectacularly wrong, the way
that it could be disrespectful to the original pictures. But
I do think that the essential vibe is there. So
if you go from Showgun Assassin and you're like, yeah,

(05:26):
I would like more of this, well, the Lone Wolf
and Cub series is more of this, you know, because
it is, you know, the full plot, the full character
development of everything that is in Showgun Assassin that you love,
except for the score, a different score, but still effective
scores in the original pictures.

Speaker 3 (05:45):
So regarding not the original films, but Showgun Assassin specifically,
I've read this movie is esthetic described in terms like
poetic exploitation violence, and I think that's a good way
to put it, because this movie feels like it has
two souls at once. It is at once a work
of art and a piece of trashy grindhouse gore. So

(06:09):
on one hand, there really is a kind of poignant,
almost literary quality to the way details are observed in
a lot of scenes. Just one scene of many that
comes to mind is when the young boy is trying
to bring water from the river to his badly wounded father,
and he's trying to carry it in his hands and
it keeps leaking out between his fingers, so he eventually

(06:31):
carries the water in his mouth to his father. I mean,
it's like an almost kind of beautiful novelistic detail. And
also in terms of style, there is a quite exquisite
vision at play with the composition of the shots and
very again memorable details strong misancen But at the same
time there is a campy Tom Savini Friday the Thirteenth

(06:55):
sensibility operating in quite high gear in most of the
action scenes, with like a real desire to just see
blood squirting and to get the camera all up in
the ridiculous wounds, the cloven heads and all that. So
it's an interesting combination. It's like some gore geek exploitation

(07:16):
trash and a thoughtful, meditative, historical art film about a
samurai father and son were merged into one entity.

Speaker 1 (07:25):
Yeah, like the arterial sprays and there are quite a
few of them, will make your jaw drop and exclaim aloud.
But at the same time, yeah, there are such beautifully
poetic scenes in this picture. Like I cried. I teared
up at times, you know, I shed tears just to
Showgun Assassin. So it is both things at once. I

(07:47):
think it's a great.

Speaker 3 (07:48):
Point, especially with the music. The music is a Digors theme,
especially that one was it was making me a little misty.

Speaker 1 (07:55):
Yeah, that is a strong track. We'll come back to
that one for sure.

Speaker 3 (07:59):
Now.

Speaker 1 (07:59):
One thing thing I promise not to do in this
episode is to painstakingly talk about all the differences between
Shogun Assassin and the first two Lone Wolf and Cub movies.
We'll come back to some of these details in a bit,
but just in broad strokes, I do want to mention
that clips from the first film, sort of Vengeance, apparently
amount to only like twelve minutes of Shogun Assassin, mostly

(08:22):
dealing with the backstory of Lone Wolf and Cup of
our ronan character and the child.

Speaker 3 (08:29):
Oh well, but that's a lot of what the movie is.
I would bet that when people watch this movie and
then think back on it and reminisce about it, the
primary thing they probably remember is the feeling created by
the opening five minutes or so. Not that the rest
of the movie isn't good, but that is the feeling
of this movie is really established strongly at the beginning,

(08:52):
again powerfully moody, with this strong synth based melody that
plays under Diegoro's the child. The child's narration as he
describes the backstory, and we see these scenes very rapidly
cut together. They condense a lot of story into not
much space, but it's quite effective in my opinion.

Speaker 1 (09:14):
Yeah, that narration by the child is quite excellent, and
that is something that is original to Shogun Assassin. There
is not something like that in the Lone Wolf and
Cub movies. We don't really have his insight or reflection
on what happens.

Speaker 3 (09:30):
Here, though his narration continues throughout this movie. I mean
like he gets to tell us how, you know, we
see them pushing the cart through the jungle and they
look around and see monkeys screaming at them, and the
kid says, this is how I get my education.

Speaker 1 (09:45):
Yeah, so I'll come back to some of the details
about the differences and at least the ones that are
really key to understanding what's happening in the picture or
why things are, you know, proceding the way they are.
But yeah, basically, though, more time is spent with the characters,
of course, more time is spent with the politics and
the background. More time is spent laying out the duties

(10:07):
that ogami Eto has. That's our main character, the Showgun's executioner.
In fact, the first ten minutes or so the first Lone,
Wolve and Cup movie is just ogami Eto about to
execute a young lord, like a child that is the
same age as his own son, on the orders of

(10:29):
the Shogun. This is of course the sort of thing
that if you are a recent viewer of the excellent
Hulu FX miniseries Showgun, which is of course more historically
based perhaps in some ways than Shogun Assessin, you'll be
familiar with this sort of thing. But it does just
a great job in the original picture just laying out

(10:49):
like this is the kind of work he has to do,
you know, he has to do bloody deets for the Showgun.
Out of a sense of honor and duty, and at
and at night he prays for this of those that
he has killed. And then finally, I should also mention
that both of these films had also already been released
in the US by Toho with subtitles, so it's interesting

(11:11):
to think about that as well. This is not it's
not like Shogun Assassin was the absolute first time US
audience has had a chance to see these films. You know,
at least some moviegoers out there already were familiar with them.
But this was kind of like a you know, a
redistribution or repackaging of these films for a new audience,
and it certainly seemed to have found its audience.

Speaker 3 (11:33):
Well, yeah, that makes me think, what is your understanding
of the original reception history of this movie. Was it
literally like a you know, a midnight movie grindhouse kind
of kind of thing.

Speaker 1 (11:42):
That's my understanding. This was like a grindhouse sensation, you know,
in which the expectations for cinema were you know, at
the extreme. People were tuning in to see those brilliant
arterial sprays, the violence and some of the psychedelic sequences,
you know. And and it's through this that Shogun Assassin

(12:03):
ended up really resonating with various various folks, everyone from
like you know, Quentin Tarantino, members of a Wu Tang clan,
and so forth. There's a lot here that's been sampled
elsewhere and so forth. So I think it it also
does a great job of just you know, introducing the
world of Lone Wolf and Cub to a different audience,

(12:23):
a wider audience, if you will.

Speaker 3 (12:25):
You can think of it kind of like one of
those sitcom episodes where they do a clip show from
the other episodes, but here it's it's a clip show
of Lone Wolf and Cub, so you get you get
a flavor of the different adventures.

Speaker 1 (12:36):
It's hard to imagine another project doing something like this though,
Like can you imagine taking say Predator one and Predator
two and then editing them together into one film.

Speaker 3 (12:47):
It would be easier if they had the same main character,
but yeah.

Speaker 1 (12:51):
I guess. Or how about Godfather one and to edited
into a single ninety minute film call it Mafia sa brilliant.

Speaker 3 (13:02):
I love it.

Speaker 1 (13:04):
That's maybe more apt because in an effort like you
would have to like boil out, you know, reduce it
and remove all of most of the politics and get
down to just like an ultra simplified, like you know, plot,
which is what we have in Shogun Assassin. M Well,
on that note, why don't we go ahead and listen
to a little trailer audio. This is from the This
is the trailer to be clear, to Shogun Assassin, not

(13:27):
the original Lone Wolf and Cub films. We're not going
to listen to all of it because it is it's
kind of long, but I want to make sure we
get a little bit of that music, and of course
the narrator saying the title of.

Speaker 4 (13:37):
The picture, return to the vanished kingdoms of ancient times,
the journey to a lust empire.

Speaker 5 (13:56):
Of mad wizards and bombaric passions. Behold the saga of
a legendary warrior, a loving father who has the power
of a dozen armies in one.

Speaker 4 (14:16):
Sweep of his mystic blade.

Speaker 6 (14:20):
This is a story of honor, disgrace, vengeance, massacre, and
the man who became a demon Shogun Assassin.

Speaker 1 (14:47):
All right, So, if you would like to watch Shogun
Assassin and perhaps all six Lone Wolf and Cub films,
it's all currently streaming on the Criterion Channel. I've been
really digging this resource. Recently, there's also a great looking
Criterion collection box set of the six films. Showgun Assassin
itself has been released on Blu ray and DVD, but

(15:10):
I think that one might be harder to grab right now.
But of course, if you have some sort of rental
service at your disposal, be it videodrome here in Atlanta,
whatever your local video rental option is, or even maybe
the public library, as a listener brought up in the
recent Listener Mail episode, Yeah, don't discount your public library.
They might have some Showgun Assassin waiting for you. All right, Well,

(15:41):
let's talk about some of the people involved here before
we get into the plot and so forth. So again,
this is a nineteen eighty film release composed edited together
from two nineteen seventy two films. We can't do justice
to all the folks involved in these different projects, so
I want to most single out some of the key
folks from the first two Lone Wolf and Cub films,

(16:03):
as well as key people responsible for the Showgun Assassin cut. Okay,
all right, so starting I think at the top where
credit is deserved. The director of both Lone Wolf and
Cub films one and two. This is Kenji Masumi, who
lived nineteen twenty one through nineteen seventy five. Very well

(16:25):
regarded Japanese film director, best known certainly internationally for his
work on four of the six Lone Wolf and Cub
films that's one, two, three, and five, as well as
his Zatoichi films. His other movies also include nineteen seventy
two's Hanzo the Razors Sword of Justice and nineteen sixty
six's Return of Damijin. This is a Tokusatsu film about

(16:49):
a giant demon god. I haven't seen these films, but
this was the second in a series that had started
earlier that same year. Like a big statue type.

Speaker 3 (16:59):
Dude, Well, like a giant statue of a samurai warrior.

Speaker 1 (17:04):
Yeah, exactly, with a scowl on his face and so forth.

Speaker 3 (17:08):
See screenshots of one scene where he appears to be
walking through a parted See ooh, I don't know. I'll
have to flag this one. Come back to it, all right.

Speaker 1 (17:20):
We also have to credit the creators of Lone Wolf
and Cub. Two individuals worth singling out here. The first
as Kazuo Kooki, who lived nineteen thirty six through twenty
nineteen writer, creator of the He's the legendary Japanese manga writer, novelist, screenwriter, lyricist,

(17:41):
and entrepreneur, apparently best known for co creating the Lone
Wolf and Cub series, not only writing it but also
adapting it for the screen. In both of these the
pictures that are used to create Shogun Assassin. He'd continued
to do this with numerous other works of his that
were adapted to the screen, including nineteen seventy two's Hanzo

(18:02):
the Razor. He also wrote a Wolverine story for Marvel
I think I think it's from two thousand and three
X Men Unlimited Volume one, issue fifty, and he is
a member of the Eisner Hall of Fame. And then
the artists that were the manga artists that worked with
him on this was Goseki Kojima, who lived nineteen twenty
eight through two thousand. Yeah, he worked with him on

(18:25):
the Lone Wolf and Cub film, so very much a
part of the original alchemy of bringing this idea of
life on the page. All right, now turning to the
folks heading up Shogun Assassin, we have a Showgun Assassin
director and writer Robert Houston born nineteen fifty five. So

(18:48):
this individual is an Academy Award winning director for a
two thousand and four short form documentary titled Mighty Times
The Children's March. This was produced by HBO and the
Southern Poverty Loss Or dealing with the Birmingham, Alabama civil
rights Marches of the nineteen sixties. Long before this, though,
he played Bobby in Wes Craven's nineteen seventy seven Mutant

(19:10):
Mayhem movie The Hills Have Eyes. What I included a
still for you here, Joe. If anyone remembers, he's the
blonde kid in the T shirt. Okay, yeah, that's him.
That's our director.

Speaker 3 (19:23):
Wow, paths Crossing. I had no idea.

Speaker 1 (19:26):
Yeah. He appeared in a handful of late seventies and
early eighties pictures before heading up the Showgun Assassin project
for producer David Weissman, which would ultimately be released by
Roger Corman's New World Pictures. His subsequent directorial and writing
credits include an array of thrillers, erotica, an episode of

(19:47):
Doogie Howser MD, and of course, Academy Award winning documentary.

Speaker 3 (19:51):
Shorts How Strange?

Speaker 1 (19:53):
Yeah, All right now? David Weisman, who has mentioned He
is credit ded with as a writer and a producer
on this He lived nineteen forty two through twenty nineteen.
He was apparently part of a splinter group from Andy
Warhol's factory back in the sixties, and he went on
to produce such films as nineteen eighty five's Kiss of
the Spider Woman. All right, now, getting back into the

(20:15):
original Japanese cast, the actors who bring this picture to life,
it's Lone Wolf and Cub. So let's start with Lone Wolf.
The character of ogami Eto, the Shogun's executioner turned ronan.
He's played by Tomisaburo Wakayama, and he lived nineteen twenty
nine through nineteen ninety two.

Speaker 3 (20:37):
He brings a lot to this movie in that he
is an absolutely lethal action hero, but he does not,
I don't know, he doesn't have a very active aura.
He brings a lot of stillness and patience. Do you
know what I'm getting at here?

Speaker 1 (20:55):
Yeah? Yeah, And I think it's it's something that's easy
to sort of not really process all the way, especially
if you're just watching Shogun Assassin, and maybe if you
just sort of have it on in the background or something.
But it begins to make more and more sense once
you really absorb the character, because you know, he doesn't

(21:16):
talk much, but it is a full body performance of
kind of this mix of silent honor and determination, but
all of it burning within this scowling husk of shame
and sorrow. Like he is a man who's been brought low,
who's been betrayed, who is marked for death, you know,
and all of these circumstances are out of his control,

(21:37):
but inwardly he's remaining true to his principles while the
whole world either turns their backs on him or turns
their blades on him. And then when he does unleash
his fury, oh man, it's just this fluid artery severing machinery.

Speaker 3 (21:53):
You know.

Speaker 1 (21:53):
It's the and right down to when he's finished, like
the fluid sheathing of his sword.

Speaker 4 (21:58):
You know.

Speaker 1 (21:58):
It's like a final signature on a regal contract of death.

Speaker 3 (22:02):
Yes.

Speaker 4 (22:03):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (22:03):
His presence in the action scenes is very much like
a he is a machine where the valve is closed
and then suddenly it explodes open and there is a
release of activity and then it closes again.

Speaker 1 (22:17):
Yeah, it's it's such a great performance. And when you
when you learn a little bit more about Wakayama. Uh,
Like his background makes sense when you see this, because
he was an accomplished kabooki actor uh and a judo
practitioner that you know that ended up then getting into
film acting. You know, so I can you can, I
can see that, like that control of the body, uh,

(22:39):
you know, fluid movements, and and then like his his
ability to use these often like just smoldering facial expressions
you know, uh, like where he's not just scowling, He's
not just like, well, I'm gonna look like a like
like a bad ass for this scene. Like, no, there's
there there, there's stuff going on behind the eyes and
you can sense it.

Speaker 3 (22:57):
Yeah, there's something more uh sad and also in a
way threatening about the kind of the blankness that he
often brings.

Speaker 1 (23:07):
So yeah, just just a wonderful performance, you know. He
he's mostly known for, you know, for these films, the
Lone Wolf and Cub films. He's in all of these
original six pictures. He also had some starring roles and
some other Toho Martial Arts films, but outside of Japan,
he only ever appeared in two Western films. He pops

(23:30):
up as a coach in nineteen seventy eight's The Bad
News Bears Go to Japan.

Speaker 4 (23:34):
What.

Speaker 1 (23:34):
Yeah, I haven't seen that one. But then he also
has has a turn as a as a key yakuza
boss in Ridley Scott's Black Rain from nineteen eighty nine. Now,
I haven't seen that one either. It's, you know, one
of Ridley's like non sci fi fantasy films, so I've
never gotten around to it, but I've seen some stills.

(23:55):
He looks like he has a really smoldering presence, and
I think he gets to deliver a monologue that features
the title of the picture.

Speaker 3 (24:03):
Oh Wow, nineteen eighty nine, Michael Douglas, Andy Garcia, Kate Capshaw. Yeah, oh,
this looks worth seeing.

Speaker 1 (24:13):
I remember seeing trailers for it as a kid and
thinking like, oh, it's more Blade Runner, and then I realized,
oh wait, it's not Blade Runner. This takes place in
the real world, and then I don't watch it.

Speaker 3 (24:24):
But hey, the poster is hilarious. I see Michael Douglas
there with his arms folded, like, yeah, what do you want.

Speaker 1 (24:32):
Yeah, it's like something like an American cop must go
to Japan to track a yukuza killer or something. I
don't know, but it may be great if you love
it right in and let us know. All right, So
that's our Lone Wolf, our Cub.

Speaker 3 (24:46):
Sorry, I'm sorry. I'm imagining Michael Douglas doing like Fish
out of Water scenes where he like tries sushi for
the first time. He's like, oh, what is this?

Speaker 1 (24:56):
I mean it was the nineteen eighties, but I hope
that's not what Black Rain is, but I know maybe,
so all right. Digoro is played by Akihiro Tamakawa born
nineteen sixty eight.

Speaker 3 (25:09):
Child actor.

Speaker 1 (25:10):
Cute kid, but like these are pretty much his only credits.
But still I cannot stress enough how cute this kid is.
Just such a cute kid. Show any clip that features
Lone Wolf and Cub to anyone in your vicinity, and
that will at least be their one of their comments.

Speaker 3 (25:28):
Cute kid.

Speaker 1 (25:29):
A lot of spraying blood and so forth.

Speaker 3 (25:32):
He's even cute when he's operating like the switchblade knives
in his baby carriage.

Speaker 1 (25:37):
Yeah, he gets to kill too. Just one of the
interesting details, all right. The chief antagonist of this picture
is this is kind of confusing.

Speaker 3 (25:51):
Yeah, I was mighty confused by.

Speaker 1 (25:52):
This because when you watch Shogun Assassin, they talk a
lot about the Shogun, and they present the show is
kind of like this evil, paranoid, corrupted ruler who is
just exacting his vengeance in paranoia on the entire nation.
Like that's very much three and that's you know, ed

(26:14):
works within the context of Shogun Assassin. But the character
who they identify as the Showgun is absolutely not the
Shogun in the Lone Wolf and Cub series.

Speaker 3 (26:26):
I was so confused because the movie, the way it's edited,
makes it clear that he's supposed to be the Shogun,
because like when the narration mentions the Shogun, they always
showed this guy's face. And then I was reading summaries
of the plot that like, say, no, this guy isn't
the Shogun. He's like the head of the Ninja assassins,
And I was like, well, that kind of makes sense

(26:47):
because he doesn't really look like he doesn't have shogun regalia, no,
not at all, And so yeah, it was I had
no idea what was going on here, but I did
call him the Shogun in my plot summaries. Yeah, that's
what we're gonna go with.

Speaker 1 (27:01):
Yeah, it's totally fair to call him the showgun within
the confines of shogun assassin, but within the confines of
the larger Lone Wolf and Cub series and the other
six movies, this character is Yagyu Rotsuto, and he is. Yes,
he's the head of this group of ninja assassins. He is.

(27:21):
He's not the Showgun, he's one of them Showgun's many vassals,
but he is working his own political agenda within the system.

Speaker 3 (27:30):
He really just doesn't have shogun energy either. He does
have big bad energy, but for a Western equivalent, he
feels more like a like a resputant type character, like
he's supposed to be a wicked mad monk or something.

Speaker 1 (27:45):
Yeah, because that's the look he has, like this like
demon white hair and scowl like he out scowls are
our Ronan here, you know, like he's just it's a
scowl off between these two. But yeah, Ratsuto is such
a great villain in this picture. Even even though he's
largely an orchestrator, we don't see him directly do anything.

(28:07):
And that's ultimately kind of the tragedy here. Because this
character is the long term antagonist of the series. There's
not going to be any payoff with him. This guy
is not getting assassinated, No, matter. Despite the title Showgun Assassin,
the Showgun's not getting it in this picture.

Speaker 3 (28:24):
Yeah, the target of our protagonist in the last scene
in the movie is some guy. It's like, who is this?

Speaker 1 (28:29):
I think in Shogun Assassin they present him as the
Shogun's brother. Yes, but in the actual movie, the second
len Wolf and Cub film, it's like a guy who
is betraying an Indigo company in order to give trade
secrets to the Showgun. So it's like an entire subplot
that doesn't really directly. I mean, it does impact the Showgun,

(28:51):
but it's not the Shogun's brother.

Speaker 5 (28:53):
No.

Speaker 3 (28:53):
The in Shogun Assassin they describe him as this evil
lord who's the brother of the Showgun and is oppressing
the people who hire the Lone Wolf.

Speaker 1 (29:02):
But now he's like a corporate defector.

Speaker 3 (29:05):
But like, I don't recall if we ever meet him
much in the movie before this, I mean maybe a little,
but yeah.

Speaker 1 (29:12):
Yeah, so at any rate, you can call him Shogun,
you can call him Ratsudo. But this character is played
by Yunosuki Ito, who lived nineteen nineteen through nineteen eighty,
a well regarded Japanese character actor who appeared in more
than two hundred films from between nineteen thirty two and
nineteen seventy nine, with parts ranging from hammi performances, which

(29:34):
I'm to understand are referred to as radish performances in
Japanese culture because yeah, apparently he wrote a memoir and
it was like, you know, like a memoir of a
radish performer or something, you know. But he played everything
from like comedic characters to memorable villains. His credits include
Kurosawa's films Ikiu and fifty two Sandjuro and sixty two

(29:59):
High and Low, sixty three He Is. He's also known
for a dual role in the classic ninja film Shinobi Nomono,
which I think this is one that we mentioned in
passing in our episodes on the Ninjas. This is a
picture from nineteen sixty two, and it was an award
winning performance. There's also a picture called Obamb exclamation Point
from nineteen sixty four that said to be a great

(30:21):
example of his comedic work. I included a still from
Obamb where you can see him like plugging his ears
with his fingers and you know, clear comedic performance here he's.

Speaker 3 (30:32):
Doing kind of a Don Knat's face.

Speaker 1 (30:34):
Yeah, Yeah, it's that style of comedy. So yeah, I
love Eto so much in this as the villain Ritsudo,
but sadly he did not return to play the part
in subsequent films. But here we have just this brooding,
demonic visage of a man just grading with hatred. And
I have to say the English dub in Shogun Assassin,

(30:56):
I feel it does very accurately capture the essence of
his original Japanese language dialogue as well. Just that just
that grating, like teeth grinding level of a venom in
his voice. Yeah, just like you want this guy or
you maybe you don't want this guy to show up
outside your door everything every time you do something wrong,
like thee in your place.

Speaker 3 (31:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (31:19):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (31:19):
They they fit him in well as the Shogun with
the narration, at least because, as Daigoro explains that the
Shogun was paranoid and saw enemies everywhere, and this guy
looks like that. He's his eyes are always shifting back
and forth real quick to you know, see enemies coming
from any corner. He's he looks suspicious and frightened and angry,

(31:40):
and also has that that general look of someone who's
like the not wellness of their mind has affected their body,
like he looks kind of decrepit in some way.

Speaker 1 (31:51):
Absolutely so again, Showgun Assassin does not have time for
all the politics. They simplify everything. But it's it's a
good at it in terms of just presenting a picture
that the grindhouse audience can enjoy in a villain they
can who anah at.

Speaker 3 (32:04):
This movie has so many villains.

Speaker 1 (32:06):
Oh yeah, because we also have we have numerous heads
of different Ninja assassin clans and I'm not even we
can't even get into all of those, but one of
the key one, but I would say the key one
that also ends up becoming an ally of sorts is
the Supreme Ninja. This is Yagyu Sayaka played by Keo

(32:27):
Matsuo born nineteen forty three, our female ninja master of
Exceptional Skill. She's perhaps best known for this role, but
she was also in nineteen sixty nine's Outlaw Gangster VIP
nineteen sixty four's gat of Flesh. In nineteen seventy is
the Vampire Doll.

Speaker 3 (32:43):
So she plays the head of a clan of ninja
who are all women who sort of they do the
operate in disguise and sneak attack stuff and her ninja
are said to be the best, and she is. I
would say, of all the enemies that Lone Wolf faces
in the movie, she is the one who gets closest
to getting the better of him.

Speaker 1 (33:03):
That's right, that's right. But also I think she gets
a little too close to his heart.

Speaker 3 (33:09):
She gets in with a net. It's hard to beat
a net, you know.

Speaker 4 (33:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (33:12):
Yeah, she's effective in combat against and they have a
great fight scene. I mean, all the fight scenes are great.
But other thing worth mentioning is that in Shogun Assassin,
she is I believe, dubbed by comedian and actress Sandra
Bernhardt in nineteen fifty five. I'm not saying it's a
great dub, but apparently this is Sandra Bernhard.

Speaker 3 (33:34):
All right.

Speaker 1 (33:36):
There are some other heads of different ninja groups that
we could mention if we have more time. But I
do want to mention that we have not one, not two,
but three masters of death in this picture that show
up late in the movie as essentially like the main bosses.

Speaker 3 (33:55):
Their outfits, in particular their hats might be quite familiar
to fans of Big Trouble and Little China.

Speaker 1 (34:01):
Yeah, the Three Storms and Big Trouble Little China are
clearly based in part in large part on the look
of the Masters of Death aka the Monks of Death
aka the Hidari Brothers. They're not sorcerers like the Three Storms.
They are just masters of martial arts and they depend on
particular weapons. Let's see, what is it, the like the

(34:23):
flying maces, the like the spike gloves.

Speaker 3 (34:28):
Yeah, there's like a like a Gardening Claus kind of thing. Yeah,
there's a there's like a glove with spikes on the fist,
and there's a club with nails in it.

Speaker 4 (34:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (34:37):
So yeah, these are the Masters of Death. The lead
Master of Death is Binma Hidari played by Minoru Oki,
who lived nineteen twenty three through two thousand and nine,
Japanese actor best known for his work in the Lone
Wolf and Cub films. Because not only does he play
the lead Master or Monk of Death here, but he
returned to the Lone Wolf and Cub series in films

(34:59):
five six to play his own version of the chief villain,
Yagyu Ritsudo.

Speaker 3 (35:05):
Oh. Okay, so he replaces the actor who in this
movie is is twisted into being the Shogun.

Speaker 1 (35:12):
Right yeah, so yeah. The character shows up much later
and so I believe he is the actor playing the
character when vengeance and or assassination finally does occur.

Speaker 3 (35:22):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (35:24):
He was also in nineteen sixty nine Horrors of Malformed Men,
which we've mentioned on the show before. And I'll also
mention that one of the other Masters of Death, this
is the Karuma Hidari I forget which weapon he uses,
is played by Shin Kashida, who lived nineteen thirty nine
through nineteen eighty two, a supporting actor best known for
this film, as well as Godzilla Versus Mecha Godzilla from

(35:45):
seventy four, Lady Snowblood two, and then two different Dracula films,
nineteen seventy one's Lake of Dracula in nineteen seventy four
is Evil of Dracula, which I think you could also
maybe referred to as Principle of Dracula. That's one. It's
on my list now. I really want to see Evil
of Dracula.

Speaker 3 (36:04):
Okay, all right.

Speaker 1 (36:07):
But let's get back to the music here again. This
is what drew me into watching Shogun Assassin in the
first place. And we've already talked a little about just
how about how effective the synth score is. Now the
original films were scored by Iikens Sakura and Hideika Sakurai,
and I think some of their original music remains in

(36:29):
Showgun Assassin. I could be wrong on that. But more
to the point, we have this just deliriously great synth
score added to the picture. And this is the work
of Mark Lindsay born nineteen forty two and W Michael Lewis.

Speaker 4 (36:42):
So.

Speaker 3 (36:43):
I don't know if I've ever used this term applied
to music before, but sometimes we say of an actor
that we admire that they're really committed to the role,
meaning that they're they're not holding back anything for fear
of embarrassment. They're not trying to be more subtle than
is required. They just go headfirst all the way in.

(37:06):
This is the first movie I've ever seen where I
would say that about the music. The music is just
committed to the feeling. They are not holding back anything.
This just unabashed, pure feeling made into vibrations.

Speaker 1 (37:20):
Absolutely. Yeah, it's just a terrific score and it's interesting
looking at these two individuals. So. Mark Lindsay was the
vocalist and sax player for the American rock band Paul
Revere and the Raiders from nineteen fifty eight through nineteen
seventy five. Joe, are you familiar at all with Paul
Revere and the Raiders.

Speaker 3 (37:39):
Oh yeah, yeah, I mean this was some of my parents' music.
I remember when I was younger, Like, I remember kicks,
you know, kicks just keep getting harder to find.

Speaker 1 (37:47):
Mm hmm. I this was also some of my parents' music.
I specifically remember going through the records at my grandmother's house.
It would have been like the records of my mom's
and also her sisters, and find a Paul Revere and
the Raiders album in there, And I remember just thinking, man,
the nineteen sixties just looks so lame, Like this is
the lamest thing I've ever seen, because if you're not familiar,

(38:10):
their whole shtick visually was dressing up as Revolutionary War soldiers.
You know, they had these Revolutionary War costumes, which I mean,
I guess maybe I've ever heard like was it cool
at the time. I guess it was people dug it.
But I remember just thinking this just looks super lame.

Speaker 3 (38:30):
Is there supposed to be? Like, so if it's Paul Revere,
is it like the British are coming? Like British invasion music?
Is that all thing.

Speaker 1 (38:39):
I guess it's like, yeah, it's like a counter to
the British invasion, and that would that would have been
lost on me as a as a child looking at this,
all I knew at the time was that what's the
most boring thing in school? It's it's American history. At
the time. I'm not saying that as an adult, American
history is fascinating, but at the time, the idea of

(38:59):
Revolutionary War themed music was not like a great cell
But to be clear, Paul Revere and the Raiders not
super lame. They had some real gems, some real jams,
if you will.

Speaker 3 (39:11):
I understand it from the school perspective. Yeah, it's like
the band is where their theme is. They're all math textbooks.

Speaker 1 (39:18):
Yeah, it was. It was like they were textbook themed.
So anyway, Yeah, they have some, they have some. They
have some great music. I went, I'd never really gotten
into their stuff, but I did make sure that I
listened to some of their tracks. They have a great
nineteen seventy one cover of Indian Reservation So solid group.
Mark turned to film scoring in the nineteen seventies for
a bet w Michael Lewis, for his part, was a

(39:40):
music producer who got into scoring with nineteen seventy eight
Secrets of the Bermuda Triangle, and he'd go on to
score nineteen eighties New Year's Evil, nineteen eighty one's Enter
the Ninja, and also the TV series In Search of
starring Letter Tame like Oh.

Speaker 3 (39:56):
I saw that when I looked him up.

Speaker 1 (40:00):
A couple of nineteen eighty seven releases Maximum Potential and
Hot Child in the City.

Speaker 3 (40:04):
Sorry, I had to stop and remember what the name
of this other Bermuda Triangle movie I was thinking of was.

Speaker 1 (40:09):
No.

Speaker 3 (40:09):
The one I was thinking of is a made for
TV movie from nineteen also from nineteen seventy eight called
The Bermuda Depths, which starred Carl Weathers in the shortest
shorts ever made and also had burl ives as I
think a marine biologist or something. But it's ultimately it's
about a giant turtle that attacks a boat.

Speaker 1 (40:31):
I think you made me watch the climax from this picture.

Speaker 3 (40:35):
And it looked not the best.

Speaker 1 (40:37):
It looked incredible. Maybe we'll come back to it, maybe
so anyway, Yeah, the music for Shogun Assassin, I think
it's just tremendous. Again, de Goro's theme is not only
I think the best track on the score, but it's
just an amazing and emotional number in its own right.
Like it's one of these where I was listening to

(40:58):
it earlier and it was like, is this one of
my favorite songs? Now I think this is currently one
of the greatest musical compositions of all time. My opinions
will change, obviously, but right now it's really doing it
for me.

Speaker 3 (41:11):
It's so good, Like I said, not holding anything back.
You can imagine somebody being like, oh, is this music.
I don't know, should we make it a little more
subtle little but no, it's just it's just the raw
power of feeling unleashed. Something feels absolutely unabashed about it,
and I love.

Speaker 1 (41:30):
It, And it's perfect for a film that again is
a Samurai reduction. You know, it had two films reduced
into one. You know, just the most dizzying moments of
psychedelia or bloody violence condensed into a single picture that
I mean, it's really Again, it's a testament that they

(41:50):
were to the film, that the American filmmakers here, that
they were able to take part one and Part two
in this series and make a single picture out of
it that works this well. Yeah, the score here by
the way to Shogun Assassin is available wherever you stream
your music, and there are CD and vinyl versions as well.
I do not know if there is like a blood
red vinyl edition of this soundtrack, but there needs to be.

Speaker 3 (42:13):
If you listen to it, at least the version that
I heard on Spotify. It includes some of the narration
from the movie as well.

Speaker 1 (42:21):
Yeah, it's so good. That also made me tear up,
like on an airplane listening to this. You know, people
are like, are you okay, And I'm like, I'm just
listening to the Shogun Assassin soundtrack, man, that's all. That's
all that's going on here. I'm good.

Speaker 3 (42:34):
This is funny. How similar are our experiences were? I
also had embarrassing emotional episodes Digoros theme specifically.

Speaker 1 (42:42):
Yeah, all right, let's get into that plot of Shogun Assassin.

Speaker 3 (42:54):
All right, Well, we have already mentioned how strong the
movie kicks off. So the introductory segment has a child's
voice narrating as we see a montage of scenes play out,
and this is the voice of Digoro, the Cub of
Lone Wolf and Cub. So the introductory narration plays over
this dark melody on synthesizer bas the sound of absolute doom,

(43:18):
and we hear the child's voice say, when I was little,
my father was famous. He was the greatest samurai in
the empire, and he was the Shogun's decapitator. He cut
off the heads of one hundred and thirty one lords
for the shogun. And as this narration is going on,
we see our protagonist walk into the frame the silent

(43:41):
ogami Eto. His eyes are downcast, he moves slowly. He
has a blank, lugubrious expression. And then we see Ito's
blade twisting and gleaming in the light. And then suddenly
there's like a shadow playlet entirely in red and just
the silhouettes of the human figures in the foreground, and

(44:02):
we see a man kneeling to receive a death sentence
and another man, presumably our protagonist here, bringing a sword
down on his neck.

Speaker 1 (44:10):
And to be clear, if you have to have your
head cut off, this is the guy you want to
do it. This guy is the ultimate pro.

Speaker 3 (44:17):
It reminds me of our series on the Invention of
the guillotine, where we were talking about how bad a
lot of professional executioners were and like they just couldn't
like it took them way too many tries to get
it done.

Speaker 1 (44:30):
Yeah, a gami eto one one swipe every time, guaranteed.

Speaker 3 (44:35):
If you want some real oof historical reading, look up
Jack Ketch.

Speaker 1 (44:39):
Oh yeah, I remember some of these details. And it
was also I recently visited the revisited the Tower of London,
so I got I got to read more about some
of these these execution facts. Yeah, but they did not
have the shoguns mastered decapitator on hand.

Speaker 3 (44:57):
So Diegoro's narration goes on. He says it was a
bad time for the empire. The shogun just stayed inside
his castle and he never came out. People said his
brain was infected by devils and that he was rotting
with evil. The shogun said the people were not loyal.
He said he had a lot of enemies, but he
killed more people than that. Then we see a castle.

(45:20):
The gate swing open, revealing sort of a court to
a bunch of entourage of people and a ruler. And
here's where I was originally going to break and discuss.
Wait a minute, is the guy we're seeing here the shogun?
But we already had that conversation, not originally, but in
Shogun Assassin, that is what is implied. He is the Shogun.

Speaker 1 (45:38):
Yes, yeah, so we're just going to continue referring to
him as the Shogun just for the simplicity's sake here.
And you know, oh, I do love this narration because
there is a simplicity to it that also works not
only for the project that is Shogun Assassin, but also
the idea that this is a child's recollection and the

(45:59):
child is working for from a much simpler view of
right and wrong and good and evil in his known universe.

Speaker 3 (46:09):
Interesting. Yeah, and I guess implied by that, you're saying
this might be sort of a child's memory of the
Shogun in which he looks almost like a monster.

Speaker 1 (46:16):
Yeah, yeah, I think you could lean into that kind
of interpretation.

Speaker 3 (46:20):
So he's got wild, uncombed white hair and beard that's
blowing around in the wind like a mass of cobwebs. Also,
he has flaring white eyebrows, his teeth are clenched, he's
got dark eyes, and his eyes just keep jerking back
and forth, suspicions suspiciously the Shogun is not well. And
then we see the shogun soldiers leading bound men up

(46:42):
a mountain side with their hands tied behind their back
to a chaotic mass execution in the gravel beside a
small tarn. The narration goes on. It was a bad time,
everybody living in fear, but still we were happy. My
father would come home to mother, and when he had
seen her, he would forget about the killings. He wasn't

(47:04):
scared of the shogun, but the shogun was scared of him.
Maybe that was the problem. And so here we see
a brief glimpse of the family's life at home, the
mother nursing the baby's son at their house, rain pouring
into the small bamboo forest outside, and I think the
sort of weather is a metaphor. Here there's love and
comfort inside, but not outside where the weather is bad.

(47:27):
And the father comes home and undresses. He takes his
baby in his arms, and the mother says that she
had a bad dream, but the father calms her and
says to the baby, what a time you chose to
be born? Igoro. The narration goes on. At night, mother
would sing for us, while father would go into his
temple and pray for peace. He'd pray for things to

(47:48):
get better. Then one night the shogun sent his ninja
spies to our house. They were supposed to kill my father,
but they didn't. Here we see ninja scaling the wall
and sneaking into their home. And there, if you go
back to our Ninja episodes from a while back, we
see some stuff we talked about there, some equipment, like
the ninja are carrying swords between their teeth out and

(48:12):
they climb up on ropes on grappling hooks. And so
the father is praying in his temple while with the
baby in his arms, and then he hears his wife's
scream from the other end of the house. By the
time he gets there, she's mortally wounded and the ninja
are gone, and the dying mother tells the father that
he must protect their son. The narration tells us that

(48:33):
was the night everything changed forever. That was when my
father left his samurai life and became a demon. He
became an assassin who walks the road of vengeance, and
he took me with him. And then at this moment
we see a scene of the dynamic that will be
treated as sort of the ground reality for the rest

(48:54):
of the movie. The father trudging along lonely, desolate roads,
pushing a wooden cart and the baby son riding in
the cart. Daigo says, I don't remember most of this myself.
I only remember the Shogun's ninja hunting us wherever we go,
and the body's falling and the blood.

Speaker 1 (49:14):
Yeah, and this is the like, this is the key
component of Lone Wolf and Cub that has been highly influential.
So if you out there are a fan of the
Mandalorian series, like the Mandalorian is quite clearly and you know,
the creators are very upfront about this, very much inspired
by Lone Wolf and Cub. You know, a warrior protecting

(49:36):
a child, you know, hunted by enemies, but you know,
standing by the child to protect them, and especially with
Lone Wolf and Cub, I couldn't help. But also compare
it to the two thousand and six novel by Cormick McCarthy,
The Road, in which a father and his son traverse
a doomed landscape where there's ever present danger and the

(49:59):
father's entire existence is to still down to the protection
of his son. Quote. He knew only that his child
was his warrant. He said, if he is not the
word of God, God never spoke. You know that that
kind of vibe. So, I mean, I don't know the
Court McCarthy ever watched Shogun Assassin, but you know, I
think they're scratching the same itch here. But I think

(50:21):
it's something that you know, a lot of us can
relate to. You know, certainly if if there is a
child in your life where there has been a child
in your life, where you have this role as a
as a protector, like, it's easy to sort of lean
into this. I think ultimately, you know, very distilled idea
of what your responsibility is. You know, in the same

(50:42):
way that zombie films are enthralling because it simplifies good
and evil into like you know, and in us versus them.
It's like this kind of the lone wolf and cub
model reduces everything down to I must protect my child
from ninjas, you know. And you know, we get to
some degree that is.

Speaker 3 (50:59):
Act yeah, and so, and we get that demonstrated here
because here we go to the very first action scene
in the film, the attack by ninja wearing baskets over
their heads, which is amazingly creepy and memorable. So it
begins with one man running toward the father and son
from a distance. They're on the road. He's pushing the

(51:20):
cart there just in the middle of nowhere, and there's
someone running toward them, sword in hand, his head completely
covered in a basket like a helmet with a mask
in the front. There's kind of a grating in the basket,
but you can't see his face. And there's a long
build up as the ninja draws closer, and then finally,
when he's in within striking distance, the father just suddenly

(51:41):
flicks his sword and cleaves the ninja's head through the basket,
with the ninja catching the blade between his hands as
he dies. And then a second ninja leaps out from
behind the first, springs from his dying partner's shoulders and
tries to land a killing stroke while his while the

(52:01):
father's sword is stuck. But the father is too crafty.
He pulls a hidden second weapon from the cart, which
is a bamboo pole with a retractable blade in it,
and he skewers the attacker in mid air. And so
then as the first ninja collapses with his dying breath,
he tells the father, you are marked for death. Wherever
you go, you cannot escape the showgun.

Speaker 1 (52:24):
Oh, it's such a strong start this scene is not
only is it from the second film Lone Wolf and
Cub Baby cart at the River Sticks. It is the
cold open to that picture, like he just goes straight
to this encounter, and it's a little longer in the
original cut obviously.

Speaker 4 (52:44):
But.

Speaker 1 (52:47):
I have several thoughts of this same. First of all,
in the Showgun Assassin cut, I believe the second area
assassin that leaps over the shoulders of the first, I
believe he says ninja is he? Which is great with
an the context of Showgun Assassin, But of course in reality,
I don't know that as a ninja you would say
ninja as you attack somebody, But still I love it. Secondly, yeah, okay,

(53:13):
back to the first assassin though. Yeah, he apparently tries
to pull off this maneuver that is known in Japanese manga, anime,
and cinema as a shinkin shiradori. This is where you
catch the blade with between your palms before it can
cut into you, and then if you're really sadly maybe
you do a special twist to sort of like throw

(53:34):
the attacker to the side. This has become like a standard,
not only in manga, in Japanese cinema but throughout like
action picture the action picture world. Like for instance, in
Blade two, the day Walker pulls this move off kind
of lad in the picture to great effect, but in reality,
I'm to understand this is impossible for a human swordsman

(53:57):
to pull off. I think there's a MythBusters episode where
they look into it, and I think the word the
term shinkin shihradori. I think it originally referred to some
sort of maneuver that keeps your opponent from even drawing
their sword. So like, that's the time to stop it
not coming through the air at your head. Yeah, but

(54:18):
what makes this sequence so amazing is that you know
you're going up against the greatest swordsman that's ever lived.
You're trying to counter his deathly sword strike, and he
does not get all of that counter move. Yeah, it's
like maybe he stops it from cleaving his head all
the way through, but it has already entered the brain
at this point.

Speaker 3 (54:36):
But it almost seems like this was the plan, Like
the plan is that the father will get his sword
stuck in the first ninja and the second one will
use that moment to strike. Did you get it the
same way?

Speaker 1 (54:48):
Absolutely? And that's a little more clear in the original
cut of this action sequence, but I think it still
comes through in Shogun Assassin as well. But yeah, it's
a great start to the combat because this is going
to set the tone.

Speaker 3 (55:00):
So after the intro, we see the father and sons
sitting together at a campfire in the middle of a
thick forest. They're eating something white. I think it's rice
balls or maybe buns or something, and they're just sitting
there staring blankly into the fire, and the child's voice
over continues. He says, my father hardly ever talks anymore.
We just go a little farther every day at night,

(55:22):
we make a fire and have our tea, and we
listen for the ninja who never make a sound. I
like that part. Same Diego says, sometimes he tells me
about the past and about mother. I try not to
think about it, but my father can't help it. Sometimes
he gets lost in the past. And here we're about

(55:43):
to see a couple of flashback scenes from before Lone
Wolf and cub Win on the Run. The first is
after the death of Azami Diego's mother. This is the
sword and ball scene where the father he's grieving. He's
not in his right mind, and Asdigo with him in
his temple. They're both dressed in white, and the father says,

(56:05):
today I begin walking the road to hell, but you
will choose your own path. And he offers a sword
and a toy ball. And so the idea is, he says,
choose the sword and the child will join his father
on the road to hell. Choose the toy and the
child will join his mother in heaven. And there's some suspense,
but the cub he crawls and he reaches for the sword,

(56:27):
and the father is both troubled and relieved, and he
hugs his son and says that his mother would be proud,
and they will defy the shogun together. Assassin with son.
It's a great sequence. He says that, like it's like
the name of their business.

Speaker 1 (56:41):
Yeah, well it is. It does pretty bod. I forget
exactly what the wording is. But they have that banner
on their cart. That's like sword for hire, son for hire.
You need a hold of toddler, got you covered? You
need a local enemy cut in half. We can talk.

Speaker 3 (56:58):
So the other flashback is what followed immediately followed that immediately,
which is the moment of defiance. So the shogun's emissary
comes to the father and reads a decree that he
must either swear eternal loyalty to the shogun or commit
harakiri with his son, and obviously he's gonna do neither one.
He's got his head down and he starts to laugh

(57:20):
and then slowly raises his face up, looking very stern
and almost evil, and he says, you are wrong. I
have a third choice. And then the other guys they
immediately get like freaked out. Uh oh. And in one
arm he picks up his infant son, and in the
other arm he draws his sword. And the officials who
read the decree they call for guards. They're like, ah,

(57:42):
stop him, can't you see he's a devil. I'm not
sure quite what was meant by that, but it's yeah,
they're seeing him as some kind of demon. And this
leads to a brutal sword fight, one against many to
escape the building, and the father has his son in
the crook of one arm the whole time. It's very
stylized violence. We see a sword blade break off inside

(58:04):
a guard's neck. There are jets of bright red blood
that erupt like geysers from the adversary's wounds. You can
see why this was effective on the midnight movie circuit.

Speaker 1 (58:14):
Yeah. I don't know if arterial sprays like this are
realistic or hyperrealistic. I thankfully do not know, but it
certainly sizzles on the screen and you get this idea
that a human's life blood is just this high pressure substance,
absolutely straining for release by a skilled swordsman like ogami Eto.

Speaker 3 (58:32):
Yeah, a lot of blood jets in this movie. However,
as the father cuts his way out of the compound,
he is suddenly faced with the Shogun and his entourage.
The Shogun so he like cuts through the gate and
the gate opens and the Shogun is there with all
of his men. The Shogun calls him mad one and
says he can never escape his fate, but he offers

(58:53):
him a deal. He says, you agree to a one
on one duel with my son with the Shogun's son,
and if Lone Wolf can win this duel, he will
be awarded his freedom, and Lone Wolf accepts.

Speaker 1 (59:06):
Now, again, I'm not going to go into a lot
of detail about the differences between the original pictures and
Chokun Assassin, but I do feel like I need to
jump in on this one say and point out that
in the original again, Ogami is cornered not by the
shogun but by Ratsuto and his men, and he's given
a choice here. He's like, Okay, this is the way

(59:26):
it can go down for you, Ogami. Either you go
ahead and commit your honorable suicide right now, or my
soldiers are going to cut you down with their quote
wall of swords. And Ogami says, no, neither of those
is going to happen, and he tears off these outer
white robes and reveals that he wears black robes with
the hollyhock crest of the Tokugawa Shogunate. So he's like, look,

(59:51):
I'm wearing the colors in the crest of the shogun
You can't kill me. You can't even point your swords
at me without dishonoring yourself. And so they're at a standstill,
and so a compromise is made. Okay, you remove those
robes and we will settle this via a formal duel. Yeah,
because otherwise you might say, well, why didn't they just

(01:00:12):
cut him down? Well, in the original picture it made
more sense.

Speaker 3 (01:00:15):
Yeah, So we go to the duel. From here, the
duel takes place in the afternoon in a meadow of
tall grass blowing in the wind, and we see the
two samurai square off at a distance. The shogun's sun
is scowling, hateful, determined. The Lone Wolf wears the cub
on a basket on his back, and they draw their

(01:00:36):
swords and charge at one another. But Lone Wolf has
a trick up his sleeve here. Right when they are
about to meet on the field, Lone Wolf bows his
head and reveals a mirror mounted on Diigero's head, which
reflects the low sun and blinds their enemy. And then
Lone Wolf chops off the lord's son's head and his

(01:00:58):
body is just standing there, headlows with jets of blood
blasting out of the next stump in slow motion in
the golden sunset.

Speaker 1 (01:01:05):
Oh it's beautiful, I mean in a grizzly way. It
is so beautiful. And one thing that's pointed out in
the sor I'm going to do one more of these. Well,
something that's pointed out in the original picture is that
this is like a swordsman that is of comparable ability
to a gami, but he has the sun to his back,

(01:01:25):
and therefore he has an advantage and will probably prevail.
But Ogami, via the cub and his mirror, turns his
advantage into a disadvantage by reflecting the sunlight back into
his eyes.

Speaker 3 (01:01:41):
That does make more sense of it, because this part
I was thinking, well, he's just like cutting the slicing
through everybody, like butter, Why is this guy such a challenge,
But it would make sense if we know something about
him and that he has an advantage on the Yeah,
though they do show the sun. They don't talk about it,
but they do show the sun being low and in
his face. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:02:01):
Either way, even if you don't know all those details,
it is another super stylistically violent execution.

Speaker 3 (01:02:07):
Yeah. So this scene fades back into a scene of
lone wolf and Cub at a campfire in the wilderness,
and the camera slowly pulls back from them as father
turns his head. And then on the soundtrack they had
to add this in we get a guttural, animalistic growl.
It's a wolf growling, probably just a dog right. Yeah, anyway,

(01:02:31):
here the introductory I would say this is the part
where the introductory part of the movie gives way to
the main plot. Though, as we said earlier, the idea
that this movie has a plot, it's very loose. Basically,
the plot is the father wanders the country pushing his
son in a wooden cart. They stop at places where
the father can take contracts. He works as an assassin,

(01:02:53):
and he makes money. He makes money to live this way,
but he doesn't seem to really want to become rich
or like find a way out. He sort of seems
to squander the money he makes. From what I can.

Speaker 1 (01:03:03):
Tell, Yeah, I mean, I think part of it is
like he's I mean, he has no future, Like his
son is the only future that matters, and he will
do everything for him, but like he has lost all honor.
He's a wandering ronan. What is he going to do
with this money except, you know, pay for the next
night's sleep, pay for the next bath, and so forth.

Speaker 4 (01:03:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:03:25):
So, meanwhile, the shogun keeps hiring new ninjas and assassins
to send after him and his son, so we follow
several episodes of that where assassins are sent after them.
The main mission of this film, especially in the second half,
is a job that the Lone Wolf takes from a
group of locals asking him to kill a lord Kirou.

(01:03:46):
The Shogun's cruel brother who is oppressing them. But Lord
Kirou is guarded by three ninja brothers known as the
Masters of Death, whom we mentioned earlier. Kind of the
visual inspiration clearly, or at least part of the the
DNA that inspired the three storms from a big trouble
in Little China, the large wide hats, the specialized weapons,

(01:04:08):
and the deadly auras.

Speaker 1 (01:04:10):
Yeah, and they do just cut everyone to ribbons when
they jump into action. The Masters of Death are awesome.

Speaker 3 (01:04:17):
Yeah, And so the final showdown at the end of
the movie will be the Father versus the three Masters
of Death in a scene in the desert. Strangely, I
was kind of wondering where that's supposed to take place.

Speaker 1 (01:04:28):
Yeah, I've never been to any of these, but there
are a few different sand dunes in Japan, and I'm
not sure which one we're looking at here, but I
think I've seen it pop up in a few different
Japanese films and TV shows over the years.

Speaker 3 (01:04:48):
Okay, well, I guess we've sort of sketched the general
outline of the plot, but maybe we can talk about
a few scenes that we just wanted to explore in
a little bit of detail. One that I wanted to
mention is closer to the beginning, and it's the scene
where a lone wolf and cub visit a bath house
in town. Because so Digoro is explaining in the narration

(01:05:08):
that visiting a town is dangerous because they don't fit
in and the shogun's ninja are everywhere. But then he says,
but sometimes you have to take a chance if you
want to take a bath. So they go to this
bath house and the manager tries to turn them away,
thinking that they are penniless beggars. But then lone Wolf
flashes his wad of gold. He doesn't have a lot

(01:05:29):
he like, gets it out of the cart, and the
guy changes his tune. He eagerly goes to wash Digoro's feet,
and then Digoro kicks water in the guy's face. And
I like this scene because of the little moments of
the child almost playing, like the way he stomps around
in the tub. It's clear that for the rest of
his life there is very little room for play, but

(01:05:51):
here you get to see him play.

Speaker 1 (01:05:53):
Yeah, these little moments of play, they're very effective here,
and they've of course been very effective in the Man Laurian,
very much copying this blueprint. You know, the cuteness of
the child, the baby Yoda, the Grogu, you know, very
much patterned on this.

Speaker 3 (01:06:10):
Yeah. Also there's a moment here at the so they're
like taking a bath. They're soaking in this big wash
tub and it's supposed to be relaxing. You see the
steam rising and they're kind of reclined. But there's an
interesting moment where like the camera pulls back and reveals
the father's arm is draped outside the tub and he's
like gripping his sword. And there's never any attack in

(01:06:31):
this scene. It's just that this is who he must be.

Speaker 4 (01:06:34):
Now.

Speaker 1 (01:06:34):
Yeah, Ogami can never truly rest. He always has his
sword at his side, and in a moment that peace
can disappear.

Speaker 3 (01:06:43):
And so there are more plots, Like there's a theme
established that Lone Wolf's enemies want to take his son
away from him. They think this will take away his power,
and so there's one plot to steal de Gooro, and
this leads to a fight scene in a river where
these guys come and say, like, where is your son.
We're going to take him, and then the father goes

(01:07:05):
to fight them, and then it's discovered that they're like
hiding armor underneath their clothing, but he fights them anyway,
and it turns into like a final duel between him
and one of the lords who opposes him. Standing in
the middle of a river at the base of this
I was going to say waterfall, but I think it
might actually be a kind of a man made like
spillway sort of thing, and Lone Wolf wins this fight

(01:07:29):
by hiding his blade beneath the water before he turns
to move it.

Speaker 1 (01:07:33):
Yeah, so we get another like super stylistic kill here.

Speaker 3 (01:07:37):
Yeah. Also after this duel is just the Shogun's just
standing on a bridge over the water like, oh, I
will get you. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:07:45):
They keep the dream of an encounter occurring with the
showgun alive, though it's again it's not gonna happen, not
in this film.

Speaker 3 (01:07:53):
Yeah. There's another great scene, which is the scene of
recruiting the ninja win. So one of the bad guys
I think this is Lord Kouragawa working for the Shogun.
He meets with a woman who calls herself the Supreme Ninja.
The Supreme Ninja. She commands an army of women who
are all themselves Ninja warriors and the lord shows up

(01:08:17):
to task them with destroying Lone Wolf and cub but
she well, first of all, she they tell her that
he fought a duel with the Shogun's air, and she says,
what was the outcome of the duel? And he says terrible.
But the Supreme Ninja offers the Shogun's emissary a demonstration

(01:08:38):
of her of the prowess of her lady warriors. So
she's like, show me your strongest man, and this silent
fighter and a brown cloak and a conical hat comes forward.
We learned this is Juni, the strongest fighter of I
think it's Lord Kuragawa here. And so the Supreme Ninja
addresses Junin ands says, okay, you've got to try to

(01:08:59):
find a way to escape from this room. But like
as she says this, her women are gathering around him,
and things are about to go very poorly for Junei.
He tries to escape using a grappling hook in the rafters.
He throws it up to the ceiling and swing out
of the chamber, but the women cut the rope, they
rip off his cloak, they pull swords out of their dresses,

(01:09:21):
and then they just run around slicing pieces off of
this dude one at a time. So, like we see
his fingers hit the floor and then the skin from
his face falls down to the floor like a rubber mask.
Oh it's rough. They cut him into a lot of pieces.

Speaker 1 (01:09:36):
Yeah, this scene is so grizzly and wonderful. They just
systematically take him apart, reducing him to a limbless, faceless
husk that like rolls across the floor, and you know,
then there's nothing left to do but dispatch him.

Speaker 3 (01:09:48):
And then the Supreme Ninja says, this is your best man.
Lone Wolf would swallow him and then begin the most
deranged Harley Quinn laughter. It goes on for a long
time and stops quite suddenly, and she's calm and she says,
my women will execute him.

Speaker 1 (01:10:06):
So basically this lays the groundwork for the next trio
of sequences, as the has three different groups of the
female Ninja's attempt to take out Lone Wolf and cut Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:10:17):
So so first, well, this is outside. They're on the road.
Eventually they're pushing the cart between Dikon fields and I
like how at the Dikon Fields the women are like
down in the stream washing the Dikon in the water,
and there's this creepy scarecrow with this like wide eyed
face drawn on its headsack. It's interesting environmental details. But actually,

(01:10:40):
before they get to the Dikon fields, there's an ambush
by traveling entertainers on the road side. And I thought
this was funny because in our in our Ninja episode,
we were talking about some classic story of Ninja running
around and spying by pretending to be traveling entertainers.

Speaker 1 (01:10:56):
Yeah, it's a perfect cover.

Speaker 3 (01:10:57):
So in this case, the father and son go by
and the entertainers are they're like dancers or acrobats of
some kind. They're jumping around, cart wheeling and somersaulting and stuff.
Whatever these people are. They I think they somehow hypnotize
Lone Wolf with the spinning patterns on their clothing as
they spin around. So it gets very strawberry alarm clock

(01:11:20):
for a minute here. But of course these are really
the Supreme Ninja's assassins in disguise, and they try to
launch a sneak attack, but Lone Wolf is too quick,
even though he was briefly hypnotized by the clothing. His
sword flashes and they are done. And this is the
scene where Diegero starts counting the dead Ninja. You know,

(01:11:40):
he says, I try to count them so I can
pray for their souls. Father tells me not to count them,
but I have to to know how many to pray for.
And then I think he says, they're up to three
hundred and forty five, Ninja.

Speaker 1 (01:11:53):
It's quite a count.

Speaker 3 (01:11:54):
Yeah. So then we get to the attack at the
Dikon fields. So they're like going down the road in
the cart and these women come up in different waves,
Like the first wave of women throws these flying killer
hats with blades on them, the blades on the brim,
and Lone Wolf fights them off, kills them, and then

(01:12:15):
there are the next wave has knives hidden inside the Dikon, which, okay,
I love it.

Speaker 1 (01:12:22):
The dicons are like piercing the cart and all and
oh and I have to mention in the the original
the second Lone Wolf picture, when they're preparing the dicons
by the river, they're singing a little song and the
lyrics are something like, what's the side dish for tonight?
Oh it's dicon. Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:12:41):
So yeah, there there are these little a lot of
little tricks and secrets and reveals in this fight scene
like secret knives popping out of the baby carriage, and
our protagonists fight through it all until they get to
the Supreme Ninja. She herself comes out to UH to
administer the final attack on Lone Wolf here, which she
does with a net.

Speaker 1 (01:13:01):
That's right, she nets him. The net prevents him from
immediately being able to draw his sword, and of course
he does eventually draw his sword, but they engage in
this short, intense close combat sword fight where it's clear
that they're pretty evenly matched, and we get to see
her effectively pull off that sword clap shinkin Shihadori maneuver

(01:13:24):
against Ogami, clapping his sword blade before it can hit her,
and then she even does the twist and sends him
a sprawling So it's a fun little like you know,
evenly matched, you know, very close confines battle here, But.

Speaker 3 (01:13:39):
Then it gets kind of looney tunes right at the end,
like they sort of fight to a draw, but when
Lone Wolf is finally ready to like land a sword
blow on her, he like hits her, but it doesn't
actually hit her. She avoids it by jumping out of
her clothes. She's not naked she's like still wearing some
kind of full body stalking, but just lee gives her

(01:14:00):
original clothes standing there and leaps up in the air
out of them, lands in a field nearby, and then
starts fast motion running backwards as if the tape were
in reverse up a hill.

Speaker 1 (01:14:11):
Yes, Oh my god, this outcome is so wild. I
can't stress enough how bonkers it is. I think looney
tunes is the right word, because it's not like she
peels out of her clothing in a realistic manner. It
is like her outer garments are a jet fighter and
she has ejected from them.

Speaker 3 (01:14:28):
Yes, and then runs like a spring snake in the can.

Speaker 1 (01:14:32):
Like a spring snake. And then the running backwards. I
guess the idea is, like you, she can't lose sight
of her opponent something, so yeah, she's just running backwards
and doesn't take her eyes off of lone Wolf for
quite a while, like at least a half a mile
running backwards across the field. It's amazing.

Speaker 3 (01:14:52):
But she's going really fast, so we don't have to
watch her go, you know, normal normal speed to a
half mile.

Speaker 1 (01:14:58):
And he just sort of like looks at her. He
just watches it.

Speaker 3 (01:15:03):
I've seen that trick before well matched. Then they also
have to fight some more ninja in the woods. This
is a more I don't know. There's a bunch of
guys in the in the hats again and in this
fight they use the cart as a weapon, like it's
got blades that come out the sides and chop all
the ninja's legs off. But after all this we come

(01:15:27):
to the part I mentioned this near the top of
the episode. We come to the part where Lone Wolf
is injured and this leads to a sequence where the
boy has to take care of his father, like his
father is hiding in this little hut, and so I
mentioned the scene earlier of the boy trying to bring
him water from the river and he ends up having
to carry it in his mouth. But there also he

(01:15:49):
goes looking for food and he finds a food offering
at a shrine, but then he and he wants to
take it, but he doesn't want to be disrespectful, so
he leaves an offering of his own in its place.
He takes off some of his clothing and leaves it
at the shrine.

Speaker 1 (01:16:03):
Yeah, this is a very sweet section and of course
we have that great Digoro's theme playing and yeah, we
see him, you know, bring water and then food back
to Ogami as Ogami lays, perhaps dying we don't know
at this point, but helping him to recuperate.

Speaker 3 (01:16:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:16:31):
Oh.

Speaker 3 (01:16:31):
This leads to the part where Dikoro gets kidnapped to
the Supreme Ninja and the Shogun's Lord. They decide, okay,
we've got to steal him to steal the Lone Wolf's power.
So they take Digo away and they lure the Lone
Wolf out to find them in the middle of the night,
and he finds them standing around a well where Digoro

(01:16:54):
is suspended by a rope over the opening to the well.
How's lone Wolf going to get out of this one? Well?
So I think there's a clever little thing that I
missed the first time around, but I was rewatching the
scene and I realized what it was. So he says
something to Digoro and then Digoro kicks his sandal off
and it falls down the well, and I think that

(01:17:17):
is letting the father know how long the drop is,
like the timing of the drop, because what happens is
he draws his sword and he quickly slashes a bunch
of the bad guys and then stomps on the rope
as Digoro is falling to stop him from falling, to
stop him before he hits the water at the bottom.

Speaker 4 (01:17:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:17:34):
Yeah, And this is another thing where it's I mean,
the editing here is tight and effective. In the original film,
I think maybe more instantly make sense what's happening, but yeah,
you still get the sense of it here.

Speaker 3 (01:17:46):
Yeah. So he slashes all of his enemies here except
for the Supreme Ninja who's just standing there watching, but
she does not attack, and neither does Lone Wolf, and
they kind of regard each other, and then will freeze
his son and they walk away, and Daigo says in
the narration, that was the first time I ever saw

(01:18:06):
my father's spare an enemy, So I think there's some
mutual respect.

Speaker 1 (01:18:12):
Absolutely. Yeah, and we'll come back to this character again too.
But from here we kind of proceed into mostly dealing
with the Masters of Death.

Speaker 3 (01:18:22):
There's a long sequence on a boat. I don't think
we need to go into all the details of the
boat journey and the fight on the boat, but there's
like rebels who are fighting against someone and the Masters
of Death mess them up on a boat. There's eventually
a fire and everybody has to jump off the boat.

Speaker 1 (01:18:38):
Yeah, and after the everyone has to jump off the boat.
This is I think where we eventually get this sequence
where the Supreme Ninja, Lone Wolf, and Cob meet up
again and they're all wet and cold and they huddle
together for warmth, which is a scene where you don't
really know where this scene is going at first. Is

(01:18:58):
this going to be like some sort of you know,
just pure exploitation moment, But it ends up being quite
sweet in its own way. Like, I mean, there's these
three lost individuals huddling for warmth against in a dark world.

Speaker 3 (01:19:12):
Well, yeah, it's complex there because so he doesn't harm
the Supreme Ninja and she doesn't want to harm him anymore,
but she has to go away and he knows that
that means her death when she goes back to the
Shogun to like report what has happened.

Speaker 1 (01:19:26):
Yeah, so it's bittersweet. And this is of course another
thing where this is a little more complex and nuanced
in the second film, but we get a nice, you know,
edited down version of it here. But I think they
ultimately spare us nothing of the violence inflicted by and
upon the Masters of Death. All of that makes it
to the finished picture.

Speaker 3 (01:19:46):
Oh yeah, yeah. So the final conflict in the film
is we get the Masters of Death leading their person
they're serving as a bodyguard for in this sort of
caravan through the desert. They're going up and down these
sand dune and then suddenly there is an attack first,
I think by some rebels against this group, and the

(01:20:07):
Masters of Death just chop them up. They don't do well.

Speaker 1 (01:20:11):
Are these the ones that they're initially hiding under the
sand to pop up and get the Masters of Death?
The Masters of Death are just like stabbing them in
the sand.

Speaker 3 (01:20:19):
It's kind of dune yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:20:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:20:21):
But this finally leads to the Masters of Death must
face off against Lone Wolf. And I mentioned this earlier,
but in this part the music infuses it with such vigor.
There is this relentless synthesizer vamp and a high lead
over this galloping drum beat. It's really good. Like the

(01:20:42):
movie itself, I think pre dates this convention in video games,
but it feels like boss music. It's like in Mega Man.
It's the kind of music that kicks in in Mega
Man when you like enter the chamber to fight Spark
Mandrol don't you know what I mean, Like it's like
it picks up the tempo and it's like really trying
to get your blood pumping now.

Speaker 1 (01:21:03):
Yeah, yeah, it is pretty relentless. At the end of
the day, we know this can only go down one way.
They may be Masters of Death, but they are not
going to come out on top against ogami Eto. His
his skill and his heart is just too powerful for
them to overcome. So he stylishly defeats one of the

(01:21:26):
three brothers, then the other of the three brothers, and
finally it's a he's squaring off with the final of
the Masters of Death. This is the guy with the claws. Claws, yeah, yeah,
and you know they have a nice back and forth
and then ultimately Lone Wolf cuts him on the neck
with this like perfect cut. That and the spray, the

(01:21:48):
arterial spray out of this cut is like a fine mist.
This part of the of the film. This is another
like just super weird, great moment and it's like this
Serene Erotics's of death, a cut so perfect that one's
life blood leaves the body in a kind of like
high pressure howling mist like a dream. Such a cut

(01:22:09):
as like the ultimate aspiration of any killer, and oh
the irony. The master of death himself dies by this
cut without ever getting to inflict its perfection himself.

Speaker 3 (01:22:20):
Yeah, there's a line in the film where they're talking
about about like the sound of a winter wind blowing
or something.

Speaker 1 (01:22:27):
Yeah, he says, I have the quote here when cut
across the neck, a sound like wailing winter winds is heard.
They say, I'd always hope to cut someone like that someday,
to hear that sound, but to have it happen to
my own neck is ridiculous.

Speaker 3 (01:22:42):
Ridiculous, It's wonderful. But doesn't he also say something like
He's like, it was an honor to have been killed
by you.

Speaker 4 (01:22:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:22:49):
Yeah, because again, if you want to have your neck sliced,
this is the guy you want doing it. You want
you want it in the hands of a master.

Speaker 6 (01:22:57):
Oh.

Speaker 3 (01:22:57):
But then we also do, in a kind of anti
climactic way, we get to see a lone wolf doing
a grizzly finish to his contract, and then the movie's
just kind of over.

Speaker 1 (01:23:08):
Yeah. Yeah, we get like one final line from the boy.
He says, what I guess, I wish it was different,
But a wish is only a wish.

Speaker 3 (01:23:17):
No, justice for the Showgun.

Speaker 1 (01:23:19):
No again, if if you were attracted to this film
because you thought a showgun was going to be assassinated, No,
doesn't happen. And the character that is labeled the showgun
he also does not get his come upance in this film.
I think it ultimately happens later on in the series,
but played by a different actor. Yeah, but now I

(01:23:41):
kind of want to finish that journey. I'm gonna have to,
you know, in my own time, go through the next
four of these pictures. I enjoy the first two, and
of course Showgun Assassin so much.

Speaker 3 (01:23:50):
Well, that sounds great. I might have to check him
out too.

Speaker 1 (01:23:52):
It's a fun ride, a demon ride to hell.

Speaker 3 (01:23:57):
Oh hey, but one last thought. I think I said
this earlier, but even if you don't watch this movie,
which you know it's a hyper violent kind of thing,
it might not be your style. And that's fine. I
would recommend checking out the soundtrack if you can. The
music is great, especially if you love synthesizer stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:24:13):
Absolutely to a terrific score. But I have to warn
you the score, it may suck you in. The next thing,
you know, you're watching Showgun Assassin, then you're watching the
Lone Wolf and Cub series. That's how it gets started.
All right, Well, this was a lot of fun. I'd
love to hear from everyone out there. I know we
have listeners who are very well acquainted with the Lone
Wolf and Cub series and are more familiar with Samurai

(01:24:37):
and Ninja pictures than we are, So hey, write in.
We would love to hear from you. We'd love your
thoughts on Showgun Assassin, Lone Wolf and Cub the series. Oh,
if you've read the manga, write in about that as well.
I have not, so I don't have any familiarity with it,
but of course it is considered legendary in its own right.
Just a reminder that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is
primarily a science and culture podcast with core episodes on

(01:24:59):
Tuesdays and Thursdays, but on Fridays we set aside most
serious concerns to just talk about a weird film on
Weird House Cinema. And if you want to keep up
with what we're doing on Weird House Cinema, you can
always follow us on a letterbox dot com. Our username
there is weird House. You'll find a list of all
the films we've done so far and sometimes a peek
ahead at what's coming out next, and hey, we are

(01:25:19):
in December, so you know what that means. We're gonna
we're gonna get at least one Christmas movie in there.
Is it gonna have Santa in it? Can make no promises.
Will there be a Christmas tree somewhere in the background
of a scene? Probably that's probably probably how it's gonna
go down.

Speaker 3 (01:25:34):
Has it been a year since I Come in Peace?

Speaker 1 (01:25:37):
It has?

Speaker 5 (01:25:37):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:25:37):
That was That was our Christmas action film from last year.
Wasn't it that one had Christmas music in it? I
think it was Christmas was more a part of the
texture of the picture then some people give it credit.

Speaker 3 (01:25:50):
Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
If you would like to get in touch with us
with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
your Mind dot com.

Speaker 2 (01:26:12):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.